A Shift in Perspective
by stupidpants
Summary: There's some very important news regarding a certain alien homeworld that might just save them from extinction. Scared stoners, hit-and-runs, highway chases, bad, bad luck, and a few choice bullets for the messenger who caused it all. pre-ROTF/AU
1. Like, Whoa

The weather forecast for Tuesday night was extremely undershot; instead of a light, almost breezy mist, the skies bludgeoned the poor city of Portland, drenching everything with nearly three inches of water in the last two hours, and the number was expected to rise through the night and into early Wednesday morning. Thunder and lightning, though absent at the moment, was rumored to appear within the next few hours.

The city sidewalks and streets were bare, the only lights were those high off the ground and the little rectangles of illumination from several homes. Occasionally a head would venture out and peer up into the sky; there had to be a little light at the end of the stormy tunnel, right? The man who had been looking for that light suddenly remembered that it was two in the morning, and there would be no light, whether real or metaphoric.

It was very unfortunate for him that his wish had been granted, as something shot down from the heavens with incredible speed, and as it cleared the clouds the fire on its surface was struggling to keep aflame in all the rain. The light the man in the window had been looking for came, but he was not present to witness the ball of fire light up the charcoal sky, before its brightness began to dim, and the tendrils of heat hissed and steamed with every splash of precipitation. The now-doused ball of something continued plummeting to earth, and its descent finally ended when the cold, dark bay swallowed it up in gray and stormy waves, just a few hundred yards from the shore. The cannonball-like splash sent a nearby bell-buoy screaming for its life, and a lobsterman's boat rocked and rolled for several minutes before things once again became quiet and all attentions were on the storm. One of two young men hoping to snag an early-morning blunt upon the dock ran to the edge and peered over the planks, into the churning, salty depths.

Something with a very bright light moved at the bottom of the ocean and was surfacing quick enough for the boys to understand that it wasn't some sort of submarine; when a head of sorts broke the surface, he yelled at his friend, "Go, go!" The both of them ran, screaming in terror as a hand gripped one of the support beams and something big hoisted itself onto the dock a moment later.

Bag of pot forgotten, the two boys dashed away from the piers and back to their homes, hollering the entire way.

The creature checked its surroundings, whined disdainfully at the rain, and stood. Water rolled out from its still-scalding insides, steaming and hissing and evaporating before the liquid even touched the dock. It took the pier to the shore and connecting road, folded down into itself in the shape of something of an inorganic nature, and searched a half hour for some dry place. The metallic creature settled on a spot in the hospital car garage. Its keen sensors picked up the sounds of the two men miles away; they were still screaming their heads off.

_Welcome to Earth_, thought the alien.

**[][][][][]**

Norah really loved her father for very obvious reasons.

The man before her flew across the scuffed and weathered floor, landed beautifully upon his silk-wrapped toes and wormed his way into a crisp pose. The younger girls stared in amazement and giggled at the same time, not used to watching a grown man own on the dancefloor.

"Now, ladies," the instructor admonished, flapping a hand their way, "how are you all going to learn this if you're too busy slouching, laughing and... texting? Give it here, Diana." One blond of thirteen years practically tossed him the phone and partially hid behind a throng of other girls that all snickered quietly, though they were equally afraid of the ballet instructor's wrath.

This was the moment. _Scare them into it_.

The young woman who had been watching from the sidelines suddenly pounced at the male teacher, executing the same pattern shown moments ago, soaring right past his front and toward the younger soon-to-be dancers. She landed nimbly on her feet (though not as nimble as him), and watched for the girls' reactions. They were no longer laughing. Nine sets of eyes watched her every move as she stood stock-still, inhaling deeply. It seemed that the girls were willing to listen to someone of the same sex more than the actual instructor.

He clapped his hands together once, twice, and stepped up to clasp the woman on the shoulder. "You see?" He addressed the girls, "This is where you can be with lots of practice, lots of determination and a hefty amount of passion. This is Norah, my kid, and she'll be in with us, watching and teaching some of the sessions. I want you all to say hello, okay?"

A chorus of "hey"s and "hi"s and a few hand-waves filled the otherwise silent studio. Norah smiled back at them and wrapped an arm around her father's shoulders. Eyeing the young teens with a straight, no-nonsense expression, she bobbed her head twice in acknowledgement and nearly whispered, sternly, "This man right here tought me how to walk, how to talk, how to dance and how to _succeed_." She shifted her gaze up to her father with a warm, happy smile. "Since you only know the first two on that list, he'll teach you the third, and whether you succeed or not depends on how you use this information." With that, her father took over, showing the girls how to do warm-up stretches.

An hour had passed rather uneventfully, and when it was certain the students would behave and follow Mark Rizeakos' ballet teachings, Norah packed up and left.

The walk home would take less than ten minutes, however with the recent downpour and crippling coldfront, most Mainers thought even ten _seconds _outside an agonzing ordeal. She herself had bundled up in a winter jacket and leather gloves. The duffel bag slung across Norah's back felt heavier than usual because of so much movement in the pervious hours with the class, and if she didn't take time to stretch herself out when she got home, it would kink up in a few days. Rushing past a few boutiques hawking knock-off handbags, shoes and various articles of clothing, Norah stopped to help an older man in a poofy gray jacket struggling with paper bags from the supermarket before she crossed the street. He had resorted to balancing two bags on one knee, and shuffled around the other three in order to grab his keys from his pocket. One bag narrowly missed its doom when Norah interveined, reaching out to grab it with sharp reflexes.

"Thanks," said the man, offering to shake after all his bags had been deposited. They shook, spoke for a moment about the weather, and he left in his car. Feeling that she had done a good deed, Norah smiled to herself and watched the car drive off as she crossed the street at the white lines. Her little sign said WALK in green, but she heard tires squealing before she saw the blur of white pound into her legs. The collision sent the woman flying a few feet, and in no time she was no more than a heap of clothing; her duffel had somehow opened and some of her clothes from practice were leisurely floating to the ground. The car had stopped, though a bit too late for Norah's liking, and she turned her head to look at the blacked-out windshield and exploded.

"You fucking just_ hit me_?! The hell's your problem! Jesus,_ my _light_ was green_, not yo--" She stopped her tirade mid-sentence, watching in disbelief as the white car (a BMW that, in a calmer situation, she would have ogled at for hours) reversed, turned its tires a little to the right, and just drove right past her, as if nothing had happened. She wanted to scream. There were people walking up to her, shouting things, picking up her items and stuffing them back into the bag, someone tried to help her up. The woman gripping Norah by her waist and forearm smiled and motioned to a car with her chin.

Extremely grateful she was still ambulatory, even if only a little, considering her limp, Norah staggered to the Camry and plopped down into the passenger side with the woman's help. Her name was Jane, and she worked at the hospital as a receptionist. "It's a good thing I always go to work this way, isn't it?" The brunette chuckled, turning at an intersection. She would briefly glance at Norah, just to make sure the younger woman wouldn't keel over right then and there, but Norah, with her hand supporting her head, expression most likely described as pissed, turned to Jane and nodded.

"I'm not sure what even happened."

Jane's expression darkened a little, too. "This guy just flies up the street... your light was fine, and you were on the crosswalk, but, damn, he just tossed you into the pavement like a sack of potatoes. You're planning on pressing charges, right? Stupid bastards like that shouldn't be on the road."

"Didn't see a license plate, and Portland's too big a city to just say to the cops, 'it's a white BMW, and that's all I know.'"

"Hmm. Well," Jane said, perking up a bit, "if you can walk, I doubt you've broken anything. I'll see if I can cajole a doctor to slip you into an available MRI, though I hear the emergency room's been full up. I see you wincing," she added, "I'll ask them to be sure to give you something, even if it's just some Tylenol... which I have in my purse, if you want some."

Norah sighed. Well, that was karma. Help a guy out with his groceries, get hit by a car. She wondered what the driver was thinking. She hoped they were at least a little worried, and were going to be a whole lot more cautious now that they had hit someone. As they drove into the employee parking, she snapped out of her thoughts. "What? Oh, no thanks. I think I'm going to need something stronger than that."

"Honey, what you need is a bounty hunter and a good lawyer," Chuckled the older woman.

**[][][][][]**

When Norah finally got home, she wanted to curl in a little ball and sleep for five days. The trip to the emergency room was extremely slow, though Jane, true to her word, had slipped Norah in once a spot was free on the MRI's schedule. She needed help stripping out of her jeans, and finally noticed a little cut on the back of her thigh. The fabric was wet, meaning the grill of that car must've really dug in hard. Well, she wouldn't feel sorry if the mystery driver had a splotch of blood on their car, considering what Norah had to endure. It was nowhere near a fair trade, but she'd take what she could get at this point.

It took Norah a moment to remember that no, she did not live alone, and when her parents rounded a wall and began fawning all over her, eyeing the knee brace like it was a prosthetic leg, she wanted to scream for the second time that day. Finally her mother ventured, after things had wound down, "Norah, what happened? The pharmacy called, the hospital called, and they said you'd been hit..."

"Yep."

Her father's face, usually very happy and uplifting and smiling, turned bitter and frowning. "Well, do you know who it was?"

"No license plates, and I couldn't see a face. Could've been just a possessed car, for all I know." She was beginning to mumble.

"So, what's with this?" He gestured to the red felt brace strapped to the outside of her pants. She had packed clean spares for the lessons earlier, her bloody jeans retired to some boihazard bin. Twenty questions was something to be expected when anything happened, however, she wished it would just _wait _until tomorrow.

"Just some muscle bruising, this'll keep it stiff. Got two whole stitches, too. Oh, and I have a prescrip--" She noticed the paper phermacy bag on the coffee table a few feet away. "Never mind."

Her mother spoke up again, as she led Norah to the couch. "Mike went and picked it up a few hours ago, before the store closed. I think he's gone back to sleep, though. Thank him in the morning."

Norah had a younger brother. Being twenty-three, finished with college by mere months, and still working on the ballet business with her father, she decided that living with her parents wasn't that bad, and they agreed to give her the over-garage apartment. She paid rent, while her brother, Michael, who was only seventeen, still got away with being the baby of the family. Anyone who spared a passing glance would notice the similarities between the siblings; both were tall, dirty blondes with high cheekbones and straight noses. The only real difference, besides sex, was the eye color. And only by a little bit. While Mike had the traditional brown, much like their parents, Norah's eyes were separate colors; the right was hazel, the left was green. She didn't much mind it, though when doing her make-up it was always difficult to find a shadow that would go with both colors and not look hideous. Prom night was set to Defcon 5 for that very reason.

When she noticed the time on the cable box, Norah felt another wave of exhaustion pull her under. "It's nearly one in the morning. Dang. I've been out all night."

Her parents left after retrieving her a glass of water and the prescription bag. Norah had never needed something as strong as Oxycodone; it was probably a good idea that she was downstairs on the couch instead of all alone in her apartment.

Turning on the television, Norah flicked through the news channels, just to see if the car had hit anyone else. One station was playing back its news from that morning, and on the screen were two teenagers, friends of Mike, she noticed, both of whom looked completely baked. "--was huge, and, like, came outta nowhere... Well, no, it came outta the sky, landed in the water, then came outta the water, but, dude, it's coming for us, man. You've seen War of the Worlds? Yah? Well it was like that metal thing -- the thing, you know? With the dust lasers--"

"Well, I think we have it all, thanks, boys," interruped the journalist awkwardly. She looked extremely uncomfortable standing next to them. "Portland, keep an eye open for a metal monster roaming the streets... Gianna Bloom for channel nine."

Despite the pain, Norah had to smile. Michael's higher-than-the-sky friends had just made complete fools of themselves. Hopefully this would teach them to lay off the marijuana. Since this must have happened this morning, Norah wondered what the boys were doing now. No one would believe that, especially because they were high. She suspected they probably were scared off by an old man on his boat and didn't want to admit it. She heard the screaming early in the morning; there's no way they'll live this down.

**[][][][][]**

There were days when Norah could claim things _just seem to go wrong_. Just for her.

Feeling the effects of the medication more than the actual injury, a very smart, well-thought-out idea to bundle up and sit on the patio at six in the morning in the middle of March was the first and foremost issue on Norah's to-do list. With messy hair, bloodshot, sleepy eyes and a hot mug of Earl Grey, she embarked on her journey out into the yard, past the tarp-covered inground pool and over to the brick fire pit. With a squeaky yawn, she set the mug down and curled into one of the two neglected lawn chairs. Someone should have put those in the garage months ago.  
The air always seemed cleaner in the frigid, winter months; as much as she could whine and complain about living in a place where _frigging cold_ happens on a daily basis, she wouldn't want to change the feeling of _pure _with every inhilation. Arms wrapped tightly around her knees, she rested her chin in the dip and closed her eyes. There was a distinct feeling of almost-nausea when Norah tried to concentrate on anything, and if not for the squawk of some large bird, she would have fallen asleep in the twenty-something-degree weather. Curious, because the wildlife was usually silent, she cracked an eye open and searched for the offending bird. There was no bird, however there was something fishy about the pool; one end of the tarp had become very loose, and she heard it flapping in the wind. Since it was new, it was still empty, and there were plenty of little critters which were small enough to sneak in... only to get stuck, which sounded like the current situation.

Norah's Investigation Mode kicked in and she cautiously unknotted herself from the lawn chair and crept over to the poolside. Maybe the bird was trapped in there? The woman got down on her hands and knees, crawled slowly to the edge, pinched some fabric between her gloved fingers, lifted it, looked in, and froze.

"..._what_."

It was not a bird. It was much bigger than a bird.

Flying backward in a clumsy crabwalk that did absolute _wonders_ for her injury, Norah twisted onto her stomach, pushed her knees up under her chest with a gasp of pure agony and _bolted._ Through the blind panic, she hadn't noticed that she ran absolutely nowhere. She was actually moving in _reverse_.

The monster in the pool had snatched her in its hands and pulled her into the ten-feet-deep, waterless depression.

**[][][][][]**

AN: Pot's bad for you, kids. Just look at those guys.

Also: My first fanfiction piece ever! Yaaaaaay. If you enjoyed it, or even if you spotted some misspelling or something like that, please don't hesitate to tell me in a review, or by email is fine too.

...you did enjoy it, right? 'Cause I certainly enjoyed writing it, and there's more on the way. :)

-Pants out.

PS: _Rizeakos = RIZ-EE-AH-KIS_


	2. Ain't No Strip Tease

(Oh yeah I need to disclaim this, don't I? Okay, here goes):

If I owned Transformers, do you think I'd be writing for _FANFICTION_ ??? No, I'd be in my mansion, typing up a script for TRANSFORMERS ON ICE on my two gazillion dollar computer. So no, I do not own the TF franchise. Only in dreams do wishes come true... so, F*** you, dreams.

* * *

_**ASiP 2**_

There were so many things that Norah wanted to do before she died. Kids, _oh,_ had she thought about kids. She wanted two boys and a little girl, and a husband to father them who loved her dearly; she wanted to dance in Carnegie Hall, if she was ever good enough; Norah had dreamed of growing old in rocking chairs, scolding her grandkids for slinging mud at mean neighbors (but she'd really fist-bump with them and break out the ice cream, like all good grannies should); and in order to escape the pain of losing the love of her life when at the end of the road, she wanted to die before her husband.

But that was in the future, far, far away. She wasn't going to die now.

No, she was going to kick and thrash and scream and even bite, if she had to. Through her down coat, Norah felt its hard fingers dig into her middle; She couldn't tell at her angle exactly how big it was, but the thing's hands were just slightly larger than a pillow each, though were in now way soft or comforting. One metal digit that had her at the hip had slipped under her coat and shirt. Cold, hard and sharp grated against her hip bone, and she snapped. Completely disregarding the fact that this robotic creature was flipping _huge_, she tried her best to convey her want to survive. Doing the only thing Norah knew how to do in such a situation, the woman cried out, shrilly, for anyone who might be around. Her voice had only been working for a mere half-second before the robot shook her a little. It was fitting, in a horribly ironic way; she was the size of a Raggedy Ann to this monster. Wide-eyed, Norah's volume quit, and she just gaped at it like a waterless fish.

"Stop that," it said, though its words were flat, and almost sounded confused. Norah noticed the male infliction of its --his?-- voice, along with the tinniness of it -- sounded like a robot, all right, but there was _life_ to that voice. Norah grew up with robots that were monotoned and only said _destroy, destroy, destroy._ She had yet to hear this particular robot mutter one word pointing toward any kind of destruction, though that small reassurance didn't assuage any of the fears kicking around in her stomach. The first and foremost thought running through Norah's head was _fight. _

There were a few problems with that. How could she fight something that was taller than a house and probably outweighed her by a few tons? Not to mention the fact that all the muscle she had maintained throughout her eighteen years of ballet was for _beauty_, not _hulksmashnow_ strength. A body builder could rip her in half... heck, a child could rip her in half. So she tried to fight the only other way she knew how.

With words.

"What the hell is your problem!" The robot flinched; he wasn't expecting a retaliation, it seemed. It was working. She tried to look absolutely pissed; her eyes were narrow, brows down in anger, and her body went tense. Adrenalin pumping, Norah hissed, "I don't know what the fuck you are, but you need to let go of me...you need to get out of my pool...and you need to explain yourself, or I'm running in that house and calling NASA and Area 51, and _so help me God_, I'll do it with a smile on my face." Norah scared herself a little; never in her twenty-three years had she talked so scathingly to another person, whether human or not. She was usually very considerate toward others, and to lash out felt almost... good. It was a rush.

But it also got Norah into some trouble.

The robot did not set her back on the ground above. Instead, he placed her at the bottom of the pool, between his extremely intricate (and large) feet. "I cannot let you do that."

Norah looked up. Yes, she could see the glorious sky through the open flap, but it was quite a way up, and the ladder was behind the robot's back. Unless she wanted to play jungle gym all over the robot, she was trapped. So instead she sat, defeated, as he sat back, contemplating her. She could barely see any more than a few parts of him, but Norah could tell that he was white, at least, and that he was not a conventional run-away-from-government robot. Now, if KITT had been chilling in her pool, maybe she'd rethink the latter, but not for this one; he was the exact opposite of some TV robot.

Norah was in no way a paranoid person, but just feeling those blue lights on the skin of her face sent shivers up her spine, and Norah was beginning to feel claustrophobic. Averting her gaze elsewhere, the woman swallowed, took a breather, swallowed again, and said, very calmly, as if her outburst earlier had never existed, "What are you, and why are you in my pool?" She knew she wasn't going to get out without someone's help, and if that someone was another human, this pool-dwelling robot would be no more. Maybe it wasn't too late to get on its good side.

The robot looked away, and sat back. She could cut the hesitance in the air with a knife, and prodded him with, "Come on."

Big, blue eyes shifted down to her, then shuddered. "I am fr--" With a physical jump, the robot stopped and became very, very still. After a second of dangerous silence, he not-breathed, "Outside, there is someone else."

"You mean above? From the house?"

"Yes..."

"Well, don't just sit there looking so stupidly conspicuous, let me up!"

"N--"

"Let. Me. Up. I'll keep your big ass hidden, don't worry."

The robot gently lifted Norah up to the rim of the pool and pushed her up onto the brick surrounding it. For a split second she believed it had been a successful little adventure, but when she saw a pair of boots leading to a pair of legs, and so on, that were walking her way, Norah's heart began to thump in her chest. _How do I explain this?_

"Rizzy, what the hell are you doing?" _Oh, it's Mike. _Only one person in the whole wide world called her Rizzy, and that was her brother. Relieved, but only slightly, Norah stood and limped over to him. She tried her hardest not to look at the pool, and instead focused her attention on her younger brother as they turned back to the house.

"Came out here for some air..."

"Yeah, ten minutes ago," he scoffed, "I'm surprised you're not a popsicle yet -- it's friggin' cold, Norah! And I heard what happened to you yesterday; that lady who brought you there called us around five PM. Damn, girl, you got balls for screaming at the dude who plowed you down in the middle of the str--"

"_Please_ don't say _'plowed you down_.' It wasn't rough and dirty sex, butthead. He hit me, he didn't 'plow me down.'"

"Well '_he hit me_' sounds like domestic abuse, so which one's it gonna be?"

They stopped at the door. She looked at Michael -- wanted to tell him everything that had happened in those ten minutes... the robot in the pool was a spectacle, and now that she had some time to think about it, something that big trying to fit in a pool only ten feet deep and twenty by eighteen perimeter-wise, she had to let out a little giggle. Her brother noticed this, however, and cocked an eyebrow north.

"What?" She cast him a sideways glare as they passed the kitchen into the living room.

With a boyish smirk, he walked out of the room. She heard him open the refrigerator, and while he was rummaging through, she heard him say, "Nothing; I just didn't know you were still high."

"I'm not high! Did you see your friends -- the ones with the motorbikes who came over like a month ago? Yeah -- those guys were high. Made outright spectacles of themselves on the news yesterday morning." Actually, they had been right. There was a robot on the loose.

"I saw that, yeah. Laughed the whole time... when I called Brady up, his mom said that he was busy skyping with the 'Alien Brigade.'" Michael laughed. "I love those guys."

Norah wasn't sure what to do now. There was a full house of people and a full pool of robot on the other end of the yard. She understood that his reticence meant that he didn't want to be found out, and if it wasn't for Norah's going out in the first place, she might've never met him... hmmm. They never exchanged names. If he even _had_ a name; Norah hoped the robot wasn't using just a long, complicated string of numbers as a name.

She'd never remember it past the first digit.

**[][][][][]**

She wanted so badly to go back to the pool and say hello to the robot, but for the next hour she had been roped into a call with Jane, the receptionist from the day before. "Uh-huh," she was saying, sounding somewhat preoccupied as she spoke with Norah, "so you're OK, right?"

"Y-yeah," Norah said, holding the phone between her cheek and shoulder. In her hands was a block of sticky notes and a pen; poorly-drawn box-and-line robots filled up one note, and she moved onto the next. "When I was filing the report in the ER yesterday, the police hadn't seen or heard of any other assaults with that car, so I'm not sure what the guys problem was...oh. Jane, I gotta go. I'll call you later--" She hung up the phone and blinked. Jane had been extremely friendly and helpful, and in the older woman Norah had made a friend, but she had just made a very outrageous realization, and had to think for a moment, uninterrupted.

_White with the signature BMW grill. Oh, no. This is just peachy._

She ended up limping back to the pool after Mike went to school and her mother left for work. Lo and behold, the robot was still there, looking bored as ever. "Where were you, around..." she counted back to when ballet practice had ended, "three-thirty, eastern standard Earth time yesterday?"

He eyed her, unsure about something. "When was 'three-thirty, eastern standard earth time'?"

Obviously this brand of robot couldn't tell time. Instead, Norah decided to get right down to business. "Yesterday, you were driving really fast and you hit someone--"

"I hit_ you_."

"Well, yes, I kno--" She cut off her own sentence, words fizzling out like a balloon let loose. Norah needed to take a moment, just to register what he had just said. Then, "You _knew_! What, did you just follow the taxi home? And why were you going so fast!"

"I was being chased, and I had been in the hospital garage earlier...when I witnessed you take the yellow vehicle, I wanted to make sure you weren't severely damaged. The local police began to circle around this neighborhood, probably thinking you were being targeted, I had to get off the street. No garage doors were open, so I improvised. I found something else to hide in." Her pool, obviously.

"That...that makes sense." She straddled the ladder down halfway, and the robot helped her to the bottom with a cold hand. The temperature had only gone up to thirty degrees, and Norah felt a pang of guilt for just leaving him there, even if she had just learned of his existence not two hours before. "So, what now?"

"Well," sighed the robot, shifting a foot, "I hope to find Prime. I have coordinates, but no global map. I have wireless telecommunication, but I can't send or receive any data. And," he continued, "it is very uncomfortable down here."

"...How tall are you?"

He had to think about that. "I doo not know how to convert it into whatever you use to measure things."

Just then, a lightbulb popped into existence over Norah's head. She looked up into his optics and said, "You want legroom? I'll give you legroom; and you only look sixteen feet tall, as a max."

"Thank you?"

"Hmmmm. We just need to get you out of the pool."

**[][][][][]**

Norah hopped up the stairs, limped to the end of the hall and knocked on her parents' bedroom door. Since it was Thursday, the studio would not teach, but her father may still how up. She had to somehow persuade him not to do that. With a squeak of the hinges, her dad pulled the door open and smiled. "How're you feeling, Norah?" Being a ballet instructor, Markus Rizeakos was not a tall man. It was embarrassing for Norah to have to look down to see her father (there was a four inch difference), but she still "looked up to him," in that daughter-father way.

She shrugged. "I'm not the best, and walking still hurts a little, but eh, I can get around okay. Stairs are a challenge, though. Wish I could fly." Norah wanted this to go well, and in order to do that, she needed to keep him out of the picture, whic was saddening at the same time. Norah couldn't even count the number of times she had thought, _It'll be okay, it's Dad, not some stranger. _However in her heart she knew it was a very bad idea to involve him. She couldn't involve anybody else. Hell, _she_ shouldn't have been involved. It was settled. "Hey, uh, Dad?" She asked, trying her best to look pitiful.

"Uh-huh," he said from across the room, where he was peeking out onto the street. Mark turned with a lttle smile, saying, "What's goin' on?"

_Blurt it all out. Just go for it_. She inhaled.

"I was wondering if you could stay here and man the fort and I'll go down to the studio and, you know, clean up a bit... because I still think there's some water damage, and it's not like I'll be able to be part of practice with my leg all screwed up and I'm really, really bored, and I called up a friend who'd be willing to give me a ride over, or I'll take a taxi, since Mike still hasn't found the time to switch the brakes on my car... pleeeease?" With aching ribs, Norah huffed out another little "please" and tried her very best to gauge her father's reaction. She hoped he wouldn't think she was hiding something (which she was, but she learned how to lie from Shakespeare class her junior year), and to her surprise, her dad just crossed his arms and laughed.

"If you promise me that you won't aggravate that leg anymore, and that you'll watch for cars a little better, sure, go ahead. It'd give me some time to get the dry cleaning and mail some boxes off at the post office -- you know, dad things. And then maybe I'll just hang around here after... just bring your cell in case anything happens, alright?"

"Yeah, alright." Another smile and she hopped down the stairs, feeling oh-so smug.

Mission halfway accomplished!

**[][][][][]**

Luckily, there wasn't any more water damage in the back room, which meant Norah didn't have to do much. The robot had driven right through the small garage door in the parking lot behind the building; she watched, mesmerized, as the sides of the BMW seemed to shrink in; hundreds of little panels slid back, shifted and gave the car the advantage of being about twenty inches thinner, which helped him get through easily enough.

It was still early -- eight AM. Most everyone was either at work, school, or was shopping around. Norah didn't worry much about someone getting in, since the front door (and only access for clients) was locked with the security code in place. The walls were lined with planks of pine, and photos of past dancers lined the edges of the mirrors on one side of the room. Norah looked up; this part of the studio was lofty for a reason; it had cathedral-inspired stained glass panels all along the front side, which blasted colors onto the dancefloor on a sunny afternoon, and the ceiling had to be higher than the surrounding buildings in order to catch the sunlight, so her robotfriend would be fine if her hasty measurments were somewhat decent.

"Try it out."

Because she was busy cajoling her father into letting her take over for a day, Norah hadn't seen the robot transform when he finally climbed out of the pool. Now, though, her full attention was on him. Things hissed and whirred and then all of a sudden his body exploded into a flurry of movng parts. Wheels went here, panels swiveled and stuck in place, a head popped out of the top near the end, and those blue orbs stared down at Norah again.

"Ummm." She had stayed back a little, unsure of exactly how much room he'd need to transform, and was quite hesitant to come closer, after seeing him in full height. She had to smile, though. Nothing had ever been so beautiful -- this even trumped her brother's birth, and that was hard to admit. "This better than some teeny weeny little pool, um... hey, what do I call you?"

She seemed to have caught the robot off-guard; he had been looking around, too. He thought about it for a while, eyes dimming like a modem, hard at work. She wondered how he knew English if he wasn't able to connect to anything in the air. Norah would have to ask him. "I am...Burlesque, and yes, this place will do for now. You never admitted your own designation--"

Norah was laughing at him. Hard. She wiped at her eye, giggled an apology, and tried to calm down some. When "Burlesque" started to stare at her, Norah closed her eyes and grinned, trying her hardest not to crack up again.

"...that's a nice name, though where I'm from, it means a strip tease." He still stared, obviously uncomprehending. "Women and men taking off their clothes in front of an audience." Another chuckle.

She had never been stared down by a car this long (well, never at all, actually), and she felt slightly uncomfortable. When he spoke, the words were measured and sounded completely thought-out. "According to the language package I received upon decyption of Prime's message, burlesque meant _mockery, _or _parody_ long before you began to use it to describe ... women and men taking off their clothing, though I don't qute understand the problem with that anyway."

When he put it that way, Norah had to give him props. Not only was Burlesque culturally oblivious, but she began to see just how he acted when confronted; not hostile, but he explained things very thoroughly, almost offendingly, if someone took his tone wrong. She knew he wasn't trying to be overly rude, considering what she had done to give him some wiggle room.

"Well, it's very nice to meet you, Burlesque. I'm Norah Rizeakos."

Norah taught him how to shake hands, and very gently, he grasped hers in his and they formally greeted each other.

"So," Ventured Norah a few minutes later; she had retired to a chair in the corner while Burlesque stretched and walked around in a few circles. "What are you going to do now?"

"What I'd like to do is get in touch with Prime, though I am not sure how."

* * *

AN: Personally, I like his name. And you'll see why it's so fitting in the near future (probably next chapter, or at latest, the fourth).

And now I'm off to bed. Any comments or critiques are very, very appreciated -- please, feed my tiny little ego some scraps. =)

-_Pants out_.


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